The Southern California Kriegsspiel Society
Krie by Marshall Neal
Old things become new again. That’s the case with Kriegsspiel, the wargame developed by the Prussian Army in 1812 to train officers. The game has enjoyed a renaissance of sorts, thanks to the internet and social media. My goal in this article is to teach you a little bit about the game, my experience running games, and how you too can organize your own Kriegsspiel games. First, let’s get the awful truth out of the way. Kriegsspiel, which is
German for “war game” is not a war game at all. It is not fun, and in its original form, it is not worth playing. It was hated by the cadets who were forced to sit for hours in hot or freezing classrooms waiting for their professors to deliver scathing critiques of how miserably they failed. Kriegsspiel was developed by the Prussian Army with its first set of rules codified and named, Instructions for the Representation of Tactical Maneuvers under the Guise of a Wargame. The game is the great grandfather of all wargames played today. It was the first time scaled maps were used as a playing field. Maps were divided into grids, and standardized pieces represented the precise size the formations were expected to occupy in the field. Combat results tables were researched and tabulated for the various situations and types of arms and ordinance used at the time. Finally, dice provided a random element and were used to decide the outcome of each exchange of fire. The game was played double blind, with two teams, red and blue, at two tables, usually in different rooms. An umpire maintained a third table in another room. The umpire’s map showed everything, a god’s view of the battle. Red and blue could only see those units visible to their sides. On some occasions, players were given a small copy of the map and isolated from their team. Players were not allowed to speak to their teammates about their plans. Instead, they were required to relay orders and information though an umpire. Umpires calculated the time it would take for couriers to deliver the messages, and only then could a cadet act on what information the message contained. 006
Not only were the games an elaborate form of torture for eager, young cadets, they often took a long time to play. Of course, that’s also true for many monster wargames today. So far it sounds like a wargame, so why the negativity? The reason is, Kriegsspiel wasn’t played as a wargame. It wasn’t intended to be any more fun than the drill infantry soldiers were forced to perform ad nauseam. It was a tool for teaching and testing a cadet’s mastery of tactics and their character and suitability as officers. And in 1812, at the height of the Napoleonic Wars, the lessons were serious, since the fate of a nation depended on how well these young cadets would perform in the field. Kriegsspiel became a valuable tool and it was even played by experienced generals to wargame possible scenarios. The officers of the Prussian Army also recognized that the game could be improved. Over time, the game was standardized with maps at 1:8000 scale, and turns representing two minutes of game time. In 1876, General Julius von Verdy du Vernois developed “Free Kriegsspiel” a version that did away with a lot of the original’s time-consuming minutiae and focused more on tactics. The general even did away with dice, and relied on the umpire’s sole judge-
iegsS ment to determine the outcome of an engagement, which sped up the game.
BEYOND THE CLASSROOM In the 20th century, Kriegsspiel spread beyond the Prussian Army and various forms were adopted for use by military academies around the world. As technology developed, Kriegsspiel moved beyond the classroom and into the digital realm. Today most of the world’s modern militaries play highly sophisticated versions of the game, moving students and officers from game boards, to, computers and finally to control rooms to practice their command and control skills. Kriegsspiel sets have become heirloom items, and a few old sets remain in circulation or on display. The original 1812 set presented to king Fredrick William III is on display at a military museum in Berlin, Germany. Reproductions have been made throughout the years by hobbyists. The game remains in play, although there are only two active communities that I am aware of, one in Little Gaddesen, England and my own community, the Southern California Kriegsspiel Society which plays games in Los Angeles three times per year. I have heard from various people who own small sets
and have attempted to organize and play games across the years with varied success. Most verteran wargamers have heard something of the game and have a keen interest in it. It is attractive and compelling, especially when set up on display. My story and the founding of the So Cal Society is related to my wonderful experience with the wargamers from Little Gaddesen. Well over a decade ago, my interest in the American Civil War led me to purchase the computer game, Take Command the spiritual successor to Sid Meier’s Gettysburg! and Antietam. Take Command was later followed by the Scourge of War series which perfected the games and introduced real-time multiplayer. The games are digital Kriegsspiels. Players can command at any level from brigade to army with perfect fog of war. Orders are relayed by digital men on horses and take time to arrive. If the digital couriers stray too close to the enemy, they might never arrive. The Scourge of War games are still available online and more recently a Napoleonic series has been published by Matrix Games.
My interest in these games led me to the “Kriegsspiel News Forum” which is an old-school bulletin board community for the Kriegsspiel players of Little Gaddesen, UK. Not only did these fine gentlemen play the digital games online, they also met regularly for face-to-face traditional Kriegsspiels. It was during my many virtual campaigns as the great Confederate “Father General” that I was introduced to Kriegsspiel. Their website is still up and accepting new registrations and it contains a trove of useful information as well as a helpful, friendly community. I am still a member, although my visits have become infrequent. By chance, I encountered a familiar friend on those forums, a person who lived just minutes away from me and was a fellow wargamer. His name is Brett, and Brett had learned how to play Kriegsspiel in the UK. Now Brett and I realized we had a common passion and within weeks we were the proud co-owners of a set of Kriegsspiel pieces and the well-liked “Metz Map” from “Too Fat Lardies.”
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KRIEGSSPIEL A Confederate corps encounters Union cavalry on a ridge outside Gettysburg, both sides have skirmishers deployed.
spiel We organized our first game and Brett brushed up on the rules. Brett agreed to umpire, allowing me to play along with a half dozen of his friends. We occupied two floors of a downtown law office on a weekend and settled in to play. As predictable as a marriage, that’s when my infatuation with Kriegsspiel turned into misery. After about 8 hours of real time confined to a room with a fellow wargamer whom I hardly knew, my brave division of French infantry had marched about two miles on the map and just spotted the enemy when it was time to go home. Brett, clearly overworked and overwhelmed had managed to struggle his way though about two hours of battle, and the fighting had just started. Brett and I immediately autopsied the now-dead game. Why did everything move so slow? We quickly realized that he had to spend a lot of time answering questions from his friends who knew little about Napoleonic tactics, and nothing about Kriegsspiel. In addition, he was rolling dice faithfully, in strict accordance of the rules, to resolve each round of combat. It
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was labor intensive, and he was alone on the job. We planned a second game, armed with the lessons of the first. We decided that a software program written to resolve Kriegsspiel battles could be run on a laptop and would make Brett’s life easier. Once again, we played and while the computer helped, we only fought half-a-battle before it was time to pack up and go home. It was obvious that Kriegsspiel wasn’t playable.
LEARNING It was after this depressing episode that I decided to do what all good wargamers eventually do –read the directions. More precisely, I researched just how my friends in England managed theàir games. I asked them questions and read their after-action reports. The group in Little Gaddesen did two things very differently. They played at a higher scale with units sometimes representing divisions rather than battalions. They called it “operational” scale and they gamed entire campaigns, such as Jackson’s Shenandoah Campaign over the course of a day or a weekend. And they had a lot of umpires, sometimes one umpire per player. These tweaks along with experienced players made the game playable. Like I imagine a good marriage counselor would do, it changed my attitude and game me hope.
I spent another year learning about Kriegsspiel, reading what I could find, researching and planning to run a game of my own. For my first game, I decided I had to do away with the original rules and play in General Julius Von Verdy du Vernois fashion. It was the rules that were spoiling the games. I needed to streamline as much as possible. And since I would be umpiring alone, I wanted to limit the variables I had to contend with. I chose a map from the Library of Congress of a random county in Virginia. My criteria for choosing a map was strict. First, it had to be a period authentic map from the Civil War or a time shortly thereafter. It had to be relatively pristine, and free of markings. Maps that showed the deployment of armies were excluded. I wanted players to feel like they were fighting a battle for the first time, not rehashing history. I needed a large map, since I expected to have several people around it. Wargamers like big maps, so a big map would draw attention to the game, which would be played at a regional convention. Finally, the map had to have an extensive road network, like a web, so I could confine players to the network for simplicity’s sake, while also giving them a reasonable degree of flexibility. Playing on a county sized map meant that battalion vs. battalion, traditional Kriegsspiel was impossible. This too was a deliberate choice. Umpiring alone, there would be no time to roll a handful of dice for every volley. Instead, I decided to create my own system of modifiers and to roll a single die for each side, and let the difference between them determine outcome. I made up my own list of modifiers. High ground was +1, support was +1, a significant size advantage +1 and so on. These would be negated by opposing modifiers. Units would behave logically, even retreating against orders if they took too many losses. I tracked the losses with pips on the dice counting as so many casualties and so on. As for the pieces, I ordered a custom set from Photon Cutter Studios, which specializes in making attractive and affordable Kriegsspiel pieces. I customized the colors with blue and gray, and had trim applied, yellow for cavalry, red for artillery, and blue for infantry. I also had the pieces numbered, which would allow me to keep everything organized between the spreadsheet where I tracked results and the placement of pieces on each map. On game day, I gang pressed friends and friends of friends into playing Kriegsspiel. I spent the previous two days hustling the game to anyone who would listen, and managed to set everyone down at their tables. I issued paper and pens and sternly instructed everyone that they must never touch the pieces. I then dived headfirst into one of the most grueling experiences of my gaming life.
▼ Union Cavalry deploys behind a Confederate Division, as it is engaged with Union forces
Within an hour I realized that I was not going to finish the game at the rate I was moving. Luckily, I anticipated that too and built a face-saving factor into the briefing, I warned players there was a threat of a storm which could end the battle early. As I worked, and sweated from running between three tables I began to discard rules and streamline the process on the fly. I allowed players to move their own pieces and merely checked their work. I took photos with my phone and used those to synchronize the maps rather than trying to memorize everything. Still, there were problems. Paper ran low on supply as each general furiously wrote orders for their 010
units. Many of the orders were lengthy and the hastily scrawled notes were sometimes illegible. Players had started talking and conferring with one another, despite the rules. What could I do about it? I canceled the edict requiring written orders and only required them when communicating over long distances. I allowed commanders within visual range of one another to talk. In their defense, they continued to play fair, even correcting themselves if they caught themselves being tempted to act on information they weren’t supposed to know. In my wisdom I had laid plexiglass sheets over the maps to preserve them. I issued both teams a single dry-erase marker and allowed them to draw on the glass to show their orders. For some, it was easier to draw an arrow than stutter, “form column, route march!” By the end of the gaming session the battle drew to a natural conclusion. I didn’t have to invoke my battle-ending thunderstorm. My planning had paid off with a battle that started as skirmishes across the map and coalesced into a final epic engagement. I was dripping with sweat, but my players were hooked. One of my happy players bought me a sandwich at lunch, and another bought me dinner and a beer afterwards. Who knew wargaming paid so well! I had learned a lot. More importantly, the Southern California Kriegsspiel Society was born. The lessons of the first game were applied to the second. I used the same map for the next two games that year. I streamlined my processes further. I quit tracking individual losses. When I noticed a unit was being battered, I used a dry-erase marker to put a dot on the piece on my master map. The dots told me how weak the unit was becoming. I
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Players communicate by written notes, and can only act on information after the report is delivered.
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KRIEGSSPIEL The Union is positioned around Gettysburg in an attempt to defend the city. A third corps is marching to deny the Confederates the newly-built railroad crossing.
did the same with artillery, each lost gun was another pip on the piece. Elbow grease cleaned the pieces afterwards. I refused to give detailed reports or answer lengthy questions. I expected players to be ready and the few times players were not ready, I did not accept their orders. Units that were out of communication were controlled by me. I moved them in accord with their last orders doing what I felt was reasonable. As a final life-saving measure, I recruited a friend and subject matter expert on Napoleonic warfare as a fellow umpire. Between the two of us, the next couple games ran much more smoothly. More recently, we have streamlined the process just a little more and added a third umpire, allowing one of us to stay at the master map and roll combats. Since then, I have changed the map each year to keep things new and interesting, and just last year enough members were trained to the point that I was able to play my own Kriegsspiel for the first time. Several players have now offered to assist umpiring games. As an unofficial rule, we require that a player “apprentice” or assist at least twice before becoming a proper umpire. The system we now use has become so efficient that I am proud to say our games run in real time or better. That means we can fight one or even two days of battle over the course of a single eight to ten-hour session. It’s a hectic time for the umpires, but it can be done. At this point, a fair question arises. Are we playing Kriegsspiel or some watered-down, made up game that barely deserves to share the name? This is where it becomes philosophical. In my estimation, the answer is yes, this is very much still Kriegsspiel Kriegsspiel was developed to train officers. What matters are the decisions people make, especially amid the fog of war created by a double-blind system. Do they apply the correct tactics? How do they react when they are in trouble or confronted with a no-win situation? What happens when a courier never arrives or when they are given orders they feel conflicts with their mission? Do the players assist one another, do they abide by their chain of command, or do they freeze up and stop giving orders because they are overwhelmed? I have seen all of these things happen in games. Just like many umpires before me, I have seen some players blunder and others rise to the occasion and
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Umpire Mark Luta gives the post-battle briefing. Note the use of dry-erase on plexiglass to facilitate orders.
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A pair of divisions tangles near Willoughby Run. Neither division would make it to the battle at Gettysburg, although the Union eventually routed the Confederates. 013
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surprise. This is the heart and soul of Kriegsspiel. A beautiful map, attractive pieces, a growing and enthusiastic community, and professional umpires coming together to provide an experience of battle that hexes and counters cannot recreate.
DIY Gamers who are interested in starting their own Kriegsspiel community will be pleased to find there are several resources available. The original and revised rules are available online. General Julius Von Verdy du Vernois’s book is available as a free PDF on Google Books in German and there is an English translation available. Retailers such as Too Fat Lardies offer a nice selection of maps. Photon Cutter Studios does an amazing job providing pieces which can be customized. Customization of colors adds a nice touch of historical flavor while custom numbering will help keep games organized. For gamers who want a light experience with Kriegsspiel , the “Pub Battles” series from Command Post Games provides casual games that play quickly and ▼
Dry erase markers on the umpire map show the player’s intent, but not every maneuver is completed, owing to the nature of the exercise. 014
are well suited for two players or small groups. They are played face-to-face and are not umpired. I might add their games are stunning in their presentation, works of art in and of themselves. In the digital realm there are the Scourge of War games as well as Dr. Ezra Sidran’s “General Staff,” which is anticipated for release later this year. That game uses a sophisticated A.I. developed by Dr. Sidan whose work has been supported by DARPA (the Defense Advance Research Project Agency). Nearly any battle or campaign can be “Kriegsspieled,” although it seems that Napoleonic warfare naturally works best. I advise would-be umpires to playtest their scenarios before going live with a whole group. This is strongly advised in cases where a person wants to Kriegsspiel a modern or ancient battle or a naval engagement, or even something from the realm of fantasy or Sci Fi. Maps can also be found online. For my most recent Kriegsspiel, I used a post-Civil War map of Gettysburg from the 19th century. The map required a lot of work to prepare, but it turned out beautifully. Hours were spent in Photoshop resizing, sharpening, and colorizing until a small map of the battlefield became a 54”x50” amateur work of art. It drew a lot of attention and interest. If you are willing to perform the effort and pay the expense to prepare a good, large map, if will pay off in interest from the players who have to look at it for the day.
▼ The Confederates had an early advantage, but halted on the hills outside the town, giving the Union team a chance to occupy it. The Union would go on to win the game.
whatsoever. There are no officers, just those of us who have been around longer than others and those of us who like to umpire and those who just like to play. You can join us by joining our Facebook group, and anyone is welcome at our games. Presently games are played on the Sundays of President’s Day weekend, Memorial Day weekend, and Labor Day weekend at the LAX Hilton in Los Angeles, California. We are hosted by the Strategicon Convention on all three occasions. Those who wish to play must register with the convention, and there is a fee to attend, although that fee is for the convention, not our society. There are additional fees due to the location, such as parking fees, lunch, and so on. Games usually start around 9-10 AM and will run until about 6-7 PM in the evening. I can be contacted via the Facebook group and am always happy to answer questions and help people start their own communities. I hope someday to play a game pitting the members of the Southern California Kriegsspiel Society against my friends in
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Compatibility issues ruined an early attempt to colorize the map by hand. Just as much can go wrong planning a Kriegsspiel as playing one!
Little Gaddesen, but alas, the time difference and the collective need for beauty rest on both sides of the Atlantic seem to prohibit this from ever happening, but we can dream. A final word of advice, plan your games at least several months in advance. Gathering the resources, printing maps, planning a scenario and getting a diverse group of people together in one place for about ten hours is very hard to do, especially on short notice. It’s also expensive. At present, printing a 50”x50” map can cost well in excess of $300. There are cheaper ways to print, but even the least expensive means costs money and takes time. The pieces also take time to customize, print, prepare and arrive by mail. Like the or ig inal game, Kriegsspiel is a lot of work to prepare, and it takes a small miracle to pull it off successfully. However, if you manage do a good job you will be rewarded with a group of people who will be addicted to the most unique and possibly realistic experience available in wargaming.
Rather than recreate history, I also advise umpires to develop their own semi-historical or what-if scenarios. That will help to sidestep two problems that are common with gamers. On one hand, some gamers may be tempted to simply follow history and do what was done historically. This is boring to watch, especially as an umpire. The second problem is the matter of the subject-matter expert, a gamer who knows too much for their own good. That person will annoy you with the litany of details you got wrong when setting up the game.You don’t need that in your life, so avoid it by changing the battle to something a little different. Being an umpire is a lot of work, but it’s also a fun job. The umpire has the best seat in the house and gets to watch players on both sides pull their hair out and anguish over decisions. It is remarkable to watch players who are overwhelming their opponents panic because they are surrounded by the fog of war. You will notice that defeat is much less a question of numbers and more a question of psychology, as the player whose spirit breaks first is the one who loses and that isn’t always the weaker player. This lesson may be among the most profitable insights you will gain as an umpire as you realize that in all your dealings, from the board room to the game room, the loser is often the one who breaks first. The Southern California Kriegsspiel Society welcomes new members from around the world. There are no membership dues or any formalities 015